Everything in life that she had thought might in some way lead toward beauty now seemed to Clara to lead to ugliness. “What a lot I've missed,” she muttered, and opening her eyes went back into the dining-room and spoke to Hugh, still standing and staring out into the darkness.
“Come,” she said sharply, and led the way up a stairway. The two went silently up the stairs, leaving the lights burning brightly in the rooms below. They came to a door leading to a bedroom, and Clara opened it. “It's time for a man and his wife to go to bed,” she said in a low, husky voice. Hugh followed her into the room. He walked to a chair by a window and sitting down, took off his shoes and sat holding them in his hand. He did not look at Clara but into the darkness outside the window. Clara let down her hair and began to unfasten her dress. She took off an outer dress and threw it over a chair. Then she went to a drawer and pulling it out looked for a night dress. She became angry and threw several garments on the floor. “Damn!” she said explosively, and went out of the room.
Hugh sprang to his feet. The wine he had drunk had not taken effect and Steve Hunter had been forced to go home disappointed. All the evening something stronger than wine had been gripping him. Now he knew what it was. All through the evening thoughts and desires had whirled through his brain. Now they were all gone. “I won't let her do it,” he muttered, and running quickly to the door closed it softly. With the shoes still held in his hand he crawled through a window. He had expected to leap into the darkness, but by chance his stocking feet alighted on the roof of the farm kitchen that extended out from the rear of the house. He ran quickly down the roof and jumped, alighting in a clump of bushes that tore long scratches on his cheeks.
For five minutes Hugh ran toward the town of Bidwell, then turned, and climbing a fence, walked across a field. The shoes were still gripped tightly in his hand and the field was stony, but he did not notice and was unconscious of pain from his bruised feet or from the torn places on his cheeks. Standing in the field he heard Jim Priest drive homeward along the road.
“My bonny lies over the ocean,
My bonny lies over the sea,
My bonny lies over the ocean,
O, bring back my bonny to me.”
sang the farm hand.
Hugh walked across several fields, and when he came to a small stream, sat down on the bank and put on his shoes. “I've had my chance and missed it,” he thought bitterly. Several times he repeated the words. “I've had my chance and I've missed,” he said again as he stopped by a fence that separated the fields in which he had been walking. At the words he stopped and put his hand to his throat. A half-stifled sob broke from him. “I've had my chance and missed,” he said again.